Hate Crimes Act helps all Americans

It should never have taken 10 years to sign the Mathew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act into law. The act permits the Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of hate crimes based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, along with a number of other specified classes. It is a measure that should have moved swiftly through the U.S. House and Senate and sent to last president's desk for a signature years ago.

However, I cannot deny the significance of having the first black male president sign into law the first significant federal measure that, in President Barack Obama's words, will "help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are." This moment is as historically significant as having the first Catholic president, and his family, become commanding pioneers of the most liberal positions relating to social issues and equal protection under the law.

I have facilitated enough cultural competency training to know there are acute areas of disagreement when comparing the struggle for civil rights of black Americans with the fight of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people to be acknowledged and protected under the law. In some cases, people are infuriated if you even attempt to compare or contrast the search for justice between the two movements.

That suggests this measure does something very important: It inextricably links violence associated with racism and homophobia on a federal level, and it opens the lens wider to reveal how some communities tolerate terrible tough-love tactics, specifically when used against people because of the color of their skin, the extent to which they meet gender expectations or properly form relationships society recognizes as "straight."

There have been more than 12,000 reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation alone recorded over the 11 years since the murder of Matthew Shepard. This decade-long debate has not only been a disservice to victims and their families and friends, it has been a political football and litmus test for social conservatism that has bolstered the notion that it might be beneficial to behave badly within certain borders. That is the real crime.

Tony Plakas is CEO of Compass Inc., in Lake Worth. E-mail him at homerule@post.harvard.edu.